บท 63: Reversal of Fortune
"Oh no! I'm so screwed!" Krish exclaimed in fear.
What could cause an invincible powerhouse in the Tesseract Transformation realm to shiver in their boots?
An immensely auspicious golden aura had enveloped the village, a large portion of the mountain range containing Mount Tai, as well as the forest in its immediate vicinity!
As a reference, the brighter the aura appears through the Heavenly Eye, the greater the fortune. And the golden aura hanging over the area was so bright Krish was having difficulty keeping his attention on it.
Compared to its greyish state yesterday, it was a reversal of unimaginable proportions - something Krish had only seen a handful of times in his lifetime. And in all those occasions it was because of his intervention. He had employed his Heavenly Eye and shifted the flow of destiny in a way that overturned the fortune of an entire sect.
"Oh no! I'm dead! I'm so- so dead!" Krish cried as he began to inspect every part of his body.
"How did this happen?" While still fumbling around, Krish immediately narrowed and heightened his senses within his mana field to cover the area blanketed in the auspicious golden aura. He inspected every single individual, every beast, every object down to the particles floating in the atmosphere, in search of the cause.
"But- I just offered some advice! I didn't even use my eye. How did this happen?" He darted his attention around.
Finally, he stopped on three particular individuals. Amongst them, two were twins, and the third was a teen girl.
What fascinated him was that just yesterday, those three were a greyish-black shade through his Heavenly Eye. They were slated to perish soon. But now, they shone just as bright as the area around them.
Krish just couldn't figure out what he had done to cause such a change. Worst yet, he was shivering over the impending destruction his body was going to face. Without knowing where the deviation was, he could never feel safe. Sure, he could always just level this village and cancel out the fortune the old-fashion way. But he simply couldn't get himself to do it.
"I'm dying anyway, what's the point?"
Thus, Krish decided to extend his stay and observe the situation.
He waited for a week, yet nothing odd occurred. His body was fine, which meant that it was probably not a result of his interference. This shocked him further because people's fortunes are generally written in stone the moment they are born. It is possible to change it, but it requires insight into the flow of fortune, which in turn requires someone to be learned in a cultivation method such as The Heavenly Eye. There do exist cultivation methods in the world like it, but none of them are as effective as Krish's own. That is, those other powers cannot cause such a massive reversal.
This could only mean one thing: there was someone else equally powerful manipulating the field.
"But why this village, and why those three kids?" Krish pondered.
He couldn't find the answer even after staying for a month. At that point, the mother-in-law of his host had arrived and he no longer had a place to live. So, Krish commissioned the village chief and a few men to help build him a house near the stairways that lead to the orphanage.
Once he settled there Krish continued his surveillance.
Half a year later, Krish saw a series of images in the golden cloud. Generally, he could observe these images all the time when gazing into other's fortunes. However, whenever a change occurred due to his intervention, the images would disappear and it would take some time for the new visions to emerge as the altered fortunes solidified.
In these choppy visions, Krish finally saw the sign he was so desperate for in the past 1000 years.
"Someone is fated here!"
Not just anyone can cultivate The Heavenly Eye, they need to be part of the universe's design. While it sounded nonsensical, if one really considered it, it would make complete sense. A cultivator of The Heavenly Eye was technically an individual divergent from the regular timeline. One could liken them to film projectionists.
The film reel is analogous to the expected flow of fortune. The projectionists that handle these reels can observe a rough outline of this trajectory through glancing at this reel. Additionally, they also have the power to splice out frames from the reel and add others in its place.
However, while just about anyone can qualify to become a projectionist after training, it is not the same for cultivators of The Heavenly Eye. These individuals need to be fated and must be written into the natural flow of fortune. In other words, they need to be chosen by the universe itself.
If Krish decided to take in a random person and train them with this method, he would face a massive backlash from the universe.
The prospect of finally gaining a disciple greatly livened Krish. He decided to settle down, and wait for his disciple to pass through, or at least until the images in the cloud stabilised.
With that in mind, he waited. All the while he kept his senses trained on the three kids. The eldest had left a few days after his arrival. But her travels did not extend beyond the range of his mana field.
After another half a year, something odd occurred. Two individuals entered his senses. One of them had the same golden hue as the cloud hanging over the village, which had greatly solidified from its earlier misty form, while the other was a shade of black so deep that the man appeared 2-dimensional.
This stumped Krish. He had seen such a form before, but that was when he faced the minions of a cultivator specialising in reanimation techniques. Only a dead being had such a void-black shade because they had no future.
Surprisingly, this man who had a zombie's fortune, was not a walking corpse. He was very much alive!
His regular senses clearly indicated that the man was alive, yet his Heavenly Eye blared that the man was dead.
"That's... odd..."
Truly, this entire village was odd. Nonetheless, Krish was excited because he knew that this reversal had to do with this man. With a prospective disciple waiting for him around the horizon, he decided to extend his wait and observe how things progressed.
____
The moment Guy saw the face of the woman who exited the orphanage, he was thrown back to a time before he transmigrated into this world.
The hospital's VIP room's door burst open and a woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties charged in. Her eyes were red, indicating that she had cried earlier, yet her face exuded unbridled rage and anger.
As she walked, her arms flailed by her side and her body bounced in harmony. She had a short stature, yet her appearance radiated with maturity. She wasn't a classical beauty - her only appealing features were her emotive and piercing chestnut brown eyes - yet for Guy, she was dazzling in every way. Because Guy didn't like her for the way she looked, he was attracted to her soul.
"GUY! Why did I hear that you are rejecting the treatment?" The woman didn't waste any time and got right to the point.
Guy turned his head with some difficulty. He was laying on the hospital bed, set at a comfortable incline. His face looked pale and radiated a sense of weakness. He was completely bald, a side-effect of his past treatments, and his appearance was vastly emaciated.
"~Grace~" Guy spoke in a raspy voice but with a sing-song intonation.
"Don't '~Grace~' me! Tell me, are you?"
Guy smiled bitterly and nodded in response. Grace furrowed her brows and pulled over a seat next to his bedside.
"Why?"
Guy sighed and replied, "I'm done, Grace. I feel pain every day, and there's no end in sight. The doctors say that my chances are bleak. I can't take it anymore."
"But there's still some hope, right?" Grace responded pleadingly.
"Hope? This isn't living, Grace-"
But Grace quickly interrupted, "But what about your family? What about all those kids you've worked with? Why are you being so... selfish?!"
Guy exhaled and retorted, "All my life, I've been giving and giving. I think I deserve to be selfish one last time?"
"But... What about me?" Grace added in a lowered voice. As she spoke her eyes began to water once again.
"Hey," Guy grasped Grace's hands and gently patted them. With a chuckle he spoke, "Look at this! All this time, I'd been trying my darnedest to get you to open yourself up to me. Not once have I managed to break through your impenetrable barrier of ice. If I'd known that all it took to make a breakthrough was an imminent threat of death, I'd have gotten myself shot a few times back when we toured through Syria!"
Grace knocked Guy's shoulder with her fist and reprimanded him, "How could you say that?!"
Guy laughed, but he was interjected by a furious fit of coughing, "Ouch, that kinda hurt!"
"Right!" Guy remembered something and leaned towards the bedside table and opened the drawer. He retrieved a small, simple yet elegant box and handed it to Grace.
"I wanted to give this to you under better circumstances. But I don't think that's going to happen, so I want you to have this. I don't have many regrets in my life. Only one, and it was that I didn't have the courage or confidence to give this to you earlier. I was scared you would reject me. But now that I think about it, who cares if you had rejected me? You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?"
Grace carefully held the box and opened it up. As she did, she was greeted by a beautiful diamond ring. It had a small, yet intricately cut diamond, and a plain band that perfectly matched her style.
"Guy... this," Grace got choked up as she absorbed everything before her.
"Don't overthink things. I bought it way back and held on to it all this time. I am not expecting anything from you. I just want you to know how I feel about you from my mouth, and not from a third-person after my passing."
Grace lost control of her emotions and started bawling. She covered her face and ran out of the room, leaving Guy alone by himself once again.
"Sigh... She still can't stand expressing her emotions in front of me. If only I had a little more time..."
____
"Grace..." Back in present, Guy spoke audibly in a voice filled with a myriad of emotions.
The woman standing before him frowned, narrowed her chestnut brown eyes and asked, "Yes? Have we met before?"
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Junior_Sundar
Junior_Sundar Word Count: 1820
Enter, the love interest! As I've already said, this novel WON'T have a harem. I find that entire concept disgusting. I'm willing to contend my opinion in the comments XD
I must warn you guys. This is my first time writing romance. So if you find anything jarring or out-of-place, please leave your suggestions and I'll attempt a rewrite. I'm always looking to improve, and value any and all opinions and critiques.
Please ADD TO COLLECTIONS, REVIEW, and VOTE WITH POWER STONES :)
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